Plea to disqualify 8 Congress MLAs who joined BJP in Goa junked | Goa News – Times of India

PANAJI: Goa speaker Ramesh Tawadkar on Friday dismissed a disqualification petition against eight MLAs who had joined BJP from Congress in Sep 2022. He said the case was identical to the facts in the Dominic Noronha vs Digambar Kamat case, which was disposed of last month, and was based on the same event that took place on Sep 14, 2022.
In the Noronha vs Kamat case, Tawadkar had dismissed the petition saying that the Supreme Court had clearly upheld that if two-thirds of the members “of the legislature party disagree with the political party, such disagreement is protected and the same shall not incur as disqualification. Thus, Supreme Court has carved out an exception as stated above.”
He said a judgment of the Bombay high court was also in line with the Supreme Court observation. “Accordingly, I find that there is no disqualification incurred by the respondents in this case and the petitioner cannot claim their disqualification,” the speaker had ruled.
Former state Congress president Girish Chodankar had filed the disqualification petition under the 10th schedule of the Constitution seeking disqualification of Michael Lobo, Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira, Sankalp Amonkar, Delilah Lobo, Kedar Naik, Rajesh Faldessai, and Rodolfo Fernandes as MLAs. They were elected as members of the Goa legislative assembly in March 2022.
The MLAs had claimed that they formed two-thirds of legislature party of Congress and merely merged with BJP.
Advocate Abhijit Gosavi, representing Chodankar, submitted to the speaker that the eight MLAs had voluntarily given up membership of their original political party and should be disqualified. He said the object of the 10th schedule was to eradicate the evil of defection and emphasised the role of political parties in a democratic set up.
The MLAs said the present issue had already been decided and fully covered in the judgment of Dominic Noronha vs Digambar Kamat (disqualification petition) on Oct 14. They added that theirs was a valid merger as they constituted two-thirds of the members of Congress’ legislature party, and that there was no need for an actual and factual merger of the original political parties – Congress and BJP.
The speaker held that the stand of Chodankar was factually and legally incorrect.
Chodankar said he would challenge the order before the higher courts. “After over two years of filing the petition, we received the order today. The speaker’s decision was anticipated. I will challenge the order either in high court or the Supreme Court.”